Upending takes the form of live 3D cinema and has the viewers’ eyes probing the projected imagery almost as if touching its light, feeling for the illusory surfaces of things as they cross the threshold from abstraction to likeness. This evening-length work premiered at EMPAC in March 2010.

A drama of disorientation and reorientation, Upending is enacted on both perceptual and thematic levels. Ordinary objects, spaces, and bodies are probed and queried from unfamiliar perspectives, so that viewers become exquisitely aware of their own perceptual processes and of the their minds’ continual attempt to spin out meaning from what their eyes take in.

The play of images is accompanied by a new EMPAC-produced recording of Morton Feldman’s first String Quartet by the FLUX Quartet that places the listener, literally, in the center of the ensemble, with every sonic gesture articulated across space simultaneously. Through this aural lens, the moving image becomes almost balletic, even as the projected play of light allows the audience to hear Feldman as never before.

Although the 3D imagery is difficult to convey in 2D, you can see 2D still frames of the work below and high-definition 2D excerpts here.

Stills

2D stills of the work — click on thumbnails to expand.